God’s invitation and love letter
My grandmother told me often that the Bible is God’s Love Letter to Man. She dedicated many years to writing a manuscript with Scripture stories illustrating this theme.
His Word is an invitation for us to draw near to Him and seek Him for the answer to all our needs, including deep abiding love and intimacy.
So, what does it really mean to draw near to the Creator of the universe? How can I possibly have a relationship with Someone who is holy and grand and invisible?
God has provided a wonderful tool for getting to know Him. The Holy Bible presents His story of 4,000 years of God reaching out to humans and mankind’s response to Him. It is also His guidelines for how life works best.
Unfortunately, humans continue to believe that they have better ideas and want to make up their own standards, bringing great misery to the world.
Knowing ahead of time that this would happen, the Lord provided a rescue operation to bring His people back to fellowship with Himself. He yearns for relationship with us and throughout Scriptures continually pursues the people He loves.
If we believe that God is real and Jesus died for our sins, shouldn’t that be enough? Why do we need to have a relationship with Him? And how can we possibly do that? (This latter will be covered in another post.) Here are seven of the many reasons for cultivating that relationship.
1. God has wonderful promises for those who seek to know Him.
He has already reached out to us, bridging the gap between us through Jesus Chris. He has provided all that we need to know Him plus He pledges many rewards to us (Hebrews 11:6)
- He will show His love and faithful keeping of His promises to 1,000 generations. Deut. 7:9
- He offers deliverance, protection, and honor to His people. Psalm 91:14-15
- Knowing Him is the key to eternal life. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. John 17:3
2. Our beloved Friend desires to converse with us.
My God loves me (and you!) with an everlasting love and wants to be with His people, whom He calls His friends. He has things to share with us and He longs for us to converse with Him. He will even tell us His plans and deep secrets! (Job 12:22; Matthew 13:11)
- Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. Exodus 33:11
- “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. . . . No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
John 15:13, 15
3. In relationship with God, we gain wisdom.
Have you noticed how we become like the people we are around, whether wise or foolish? We have the opportunity to hang out with and learn from the smartest person of all time! He is wisdom and He shares that gladly with us.
- With Him are wisdom and might; To Him belong counsel and understanding. Job 12:13
- But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, I Corinthians 1:30
- But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. James 1:5
4. God has adopted us into His family and cares immensely for His children.
Do we not long for a Father who loves us perfectly? He delights in us and yearns for us to share our lives with Him.
- For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” Romans 8:15
- He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will. Ephesians 1:5
5. The Lord wants us to participate in His purposes.
Seriously? WE can help Him accomplish His goals? Absolutely! He designed us with a need to feel useful and competent, and He provides gifts and resources to engage us in His eternal, Kingdom work.
- And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28
- He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity
2 Timothy 1:9
6. In Christ, we have everything we need to live a life of honor and glory.
Can you imagine being filled with all the fullness of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? (John 1:16; Ephesians 4:13; Acts 13:52) What if, in addition to that, we each share all of their attributes? It is in relationship with the Trinity that we understand and access these treasures.
- [I pray that you may] know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:19
- Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:3-4
7. The Lord is committed to growing us in maturity so that we become more and more like Jesus.
As we develop our relationship with Jesus and allow Him to address our needs, sins, and thinking, we can’t help but change more into His image. His life in us transforms us by the renewing of our minds so we begin to know His thoughts and ways. (Romans 12:1-2)
- [He gave gifts to His people for the equipping of the saints] . . . until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:12-13
- And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6
This is merely the tip of the iceberg in the great riches we have in knowing the Lord and being known by Him! My heart stirs with great excitement to reflect on these truths. We engage in a great adventure when we listen to the heart of God and share ourselves with Him.
How do you feel as you ponder the things the Lord has in store for you? What other reasons have you found for drawing near to God in a relationship of love and trust?
(c) 2020 Holly Craw
Designed to Draw Near 
Bridal love! I would point back to your first point about the promises. Why are they given? 2nd Peter 1:3-4 What is the chief commandment? How would it be if a bride on her wedding day only considered all the things she was getting apart from union with her bridegroom? If she thought more of her purpose related towards everyone else including herself than her bridegroom? I think of the 10 virgins and how five were wise and five were unwise and had no reserve oil in their lamp. We many times relate service and vocation as our primary calling while missing who we truly are called to be. Will we hear the Bridegroom when he calls, “come away my beloved”? One added comment about oil in the lamps-Jesus is said to have more of the oil of joy then his brethren. Sometimes we get bogged down by service for the Lord that we no longer rejoice in the Lord! We take on the burdens and the darkness rather than walk in the light of a new day-seeing the joy set before us!
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John
That is a fabulous reason for a relationship with the Lord. You are so correct that Jesus Himself is our greatest gift and reason to draw near–so that we can be in an intimate relationship with Him and have more and more of Him in our lives. Although I used this sentence as a jumping-off point, “His Word is an invitation for us to draw near to Him and seek Him for the answer to all our needs, including deep abiding love and intimacy”
I did not spell out the bridal relationship.
For my women’s Bible study, I just wrote a lesson about the Treasures in Heaven and I emphasize that the main treasure is Christ Himself. He is the Person who is the reward and everything else (and there is MUCH) is a perk of having Christ.
Thanks so much for your comment and lovely discussion.
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From Kelli Holman
I love your post. I have spent a lot of time trying hard to learn to know God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ because I want to pattern my life in a way that reflects them. And I want to be able to qualify as being worthy to live with them again when my life on earth is finished. Great promises are ours but WE have to keep our end of the deal. I am barely scratching the surface of what I think and believe here… too much to post. But I really do know that God is our Father (the literal father of our spirit) and Jesus is His first-born, perfect Son, who loves us perfectly and died so we could be redeemed from the effects of our mortal life (worldly sin, mostly). Love you Holly
!
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Kelli,
Thanks so much for your very thoughtful post. It is true that God has given us glorious promises, and these are ours because we believe that Jesus Christ was worthy to die on our behalf for our sins. I am humbled and amazed that our salvation has nothing to do with what I do, but is completely based on His work. Isn’t it wonderful that when we believe this, we have the Holy Spirit and Christ’s very life within us, so that we now have the resources and desire to live a life worthy of our calling in Him?
I agree that we need to submit to God’s ways and the things He teaches us, and often that means that there are physical things we need to do in this world. After all, part of our purpose on earth is to draw others to Jesus so they also may participate in the spiritual blessings on earth and in Heaven.
I love that you have such a tender heart for the things of the Lord, Kelli Schiess Holman. I love you, also!
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